Unfortunately, we never know when a short sale is covered. All of the diversionary tactics that claim they're covered immediately and reference long trades and legs are designed by shorts to mislead readers. A person that does the shorting can tell us when they cover their short sale by sharing a screen shot. That's the only proof of instant covering one can hope to see.
To be clear, there is ONE authority, and that's FINRA. This is why I use FINRA facts as reported by MMs. FINRA requires two reports--the Daily Short Volume and the Bi-Weekly Short Interest, which means number of shares not yet covered.
The Bi-Weekly Short Interest Report that shorts want people to rely on shows number of open short positions for a prior two-week period, and it's delivered a week after the fact. It's basically useless because the majority of short sales that occurred in those two weeks were covered at some point.
The Daily Short Volume Report shows the exact number of shares sold short that trade day, which reflects downward pressure on the price. MMs report total volume and short volume after close, and can adjust later that day as needed.
The SEC requires FINRA to have a reporting system. It is regularly revised and easy to find by Googling FINRA short sale data.
Link to Daily Short Volume is below. The OTC numbers are in the bottom section titled ORF (Over the Counter Reporting Facility). Divide short volume by total volume for percentages.
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